my point of view about presidential system in indonesia

Indonesian Political System

Presidential System of Indonesia: The Right Way Forward?

One aspect that determines the state administration is the system of government. The relation between executive and legislative is including the system of government. So far in general, in general we know two systems of government, parliament system and presidential system. In this paper, we will only discuss about presidential system.

The characteristic of presidential system is there is separation and balance of power among executive, legislative, or parliament. We can see the characteristic of presidential system from the side of the head of state and the head of government, term of office, the election, and accountability.

Before the amendment of Undang Undang Dasar 1945, the governments system of Indonesia is assessed not meet the general characteristic presidential system or parliament system.  Therefore, one of agreement in amendment UUD 1945 which made in The People's Consultative Assembly’s (MPR) session (1999) is agreed to reinforce presidential system.

Nowadays Indonesian Presidential System can be seen from the aspect of separation of powers, presidential powers, the way the presidential election, and or vice president, term of office of the president, dismissal of the president and or vice president, president accountability, as well as the position of state minister.

The amendment caused the reconstruction the concept of sovereignty of The People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) which caused MPR is no longer the highest state institution. President elected directly by the people so that president is solely responsible to the people. President is not solely responsible to the MPR because president is no longer elected by the MPR. President position is equal to The House of representative (DPR). The equality is listed in UUD 1945. According to the constitution (article 4 paragraph (1)), while the House of Representative holds the power to form the law. According to constitution (article 20 paragraph (1)), president position not depend on parliament as inparliament DPR system, or MPR cannot easily dismiss the president and or vice president in his term, except for committing  violations of certain laws that must be decided in advance through the legal mechanism in the court forum constitutional court.

President or vice president cannot be imposed because of measures taken, such as the dissolution of the cabinet in a parliamentary system. It based on two reasons. First, because president is directly elected by the people, so that they have the right to determine the policy and because of their program and the policy, people select them as the president and the vice president.

Presidential system also known as congressional system. According to Rod Hague, presidential system is consist of three elements:

·                     President is directly elected by the people and they lead the government and appoint the government official which related.

·                     President and DPR have fixed term of office and cannot bring down each other.

·                      There is no status that overlap between the executive and the legislative

Although the president has strong position and cannot be imposed, there is mechanism for controlling president if the president violates the constitution, treason against the state, and involved criminal issue. If the president is imposed, usually the vice president will replace the president position.

For several months, impeachment became public talks. Accompanying with Century’s case by the committee which established by House of Representative. Impeachment come from words “to impeach” which mean to hold accountable. If the required is proved, then the punishment is “removal from office” or be impose from their position. Impeachment is not meaning the dismissal of office, but it is just a claim for violation of law commited. It can be mean as accusation.

This issue because there is alleged violations of law in the case of 6,7 trillion funds which gave by Century Bank. The violation alleged when Boediono era. Boediono was governor of Bank Indonesia in 2008. Bank Indonesia is one part of executive. In presidential system, president holds solely the responsible of government.

In democracy system impeachment is a consequence. Supervision is one of the most important aspect in democracy system. The needed of supervision caused trias politica. Trias politica divided the element of country into three elements, legislative, executive, and judiciary, which equal so that can do the supervision each other. Supervision known as check and balance system.

Check and balance have to accompany with sanctions. People who violate have to get the sanctions. Impeachment is the heaviest sanctions for the president and vice president. If there is no sanctions in the system there will be abuse of power. It can suffer the people.

In our presidential system, according to UUD 1945 (which already amended), the president and vice president will be get impeachment who violate the law. It is listed in article 7A UUD 1945 and article 7B. In the real UUD 1945 mentioned that president was elected by MPR, so that the president responsible to the MPR. If the president made a mistake, the MPR will withdraw the mandate. Impeachment had been carried out for two times according the UUD 1945 before amendment. The first is the impeachment to Soekarno in 1967, and the second is the impeachment to KH Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001.

In the era of real UUD 1945, presidential impeachment can implement easily. It created opinion that the presidential system is not pure because it has been mixed with parliamentary system. In parliamentary system, prime minister who also the head of government can impose everytime if they no longer had the support from the people.

Article 4 UUD 1945 lightened our government system is presidential system. Our heterogeneity can be seen from social structure, culture, religion, and region. Because of our condition, we need a system that can keep the stability of our country. Presidential deemed appropriate to keep the stability of the country. Although presidential system is the best way for solving our heterogeneity problem, our government until these days is not stable. Whereas we already have the most important aspect of presidential system (the directly election of the president by the people), but the practice in the real world is different.

According to my analysis, it because the presidential system combine with multi-party system. If presidential system is combined with multi-party system, there will be unstable conditions. I will pick the article from Scott Mainwaring (1993) who did cross-national survey. According to his research none of 31 countries which stable democracy applied multi-party system. The combination of presidential system and multi-party system is a difficult-combination. It caused by three aspects. First, because there is no majority party which will control the parliament. Comparing with with two party system, the multi-party system vulnerable make polarization ideology. The last aspect is, the permanent coalition among parties more difficult to make in presidential system than parliament system.

Nowadays, impeachment issue is became people talk. Started from ordinance changes filling of impeachment. Constitutional-court (Mahkamah Konstitusi) endorsed impeachment procedure number 21 year 2009 about impeachment procedural law on 31^st of December 2009. In the impeachment procedure mentioned that “ Impeachment against the president and vice president can be done separately or together.” The House of Representative will propose to the Constitutional Court (Supreme Court), but The People Consultative Assembly who will give the punishment.

In the end of 2010, the Supreme Court (constitutional court) made new regulation for simplifying the procedure for The House of Representative when they want to share their idea. It was commuted from the original, must be approved 75% members of tha House of Representative become quite approved 50% plus one member of parliament.

Conditions of 75% was provided in article 184 paragraph (4) of Law Number 27 Year 2009 bout MPR, DPR, DPD, and DPRP. In the session that was held o 12^th of January 2011, the court canceled the provisions thereof. They said that the conditions are not in line with the requirement Principe Check and Balance that adopted by the 1945 constitution. Reaching 75% support from members of the House of Representative is heavy condition. It made to prevent the dismissal of the president (Soekarno, Soeharto, and KH Abdurrahan Wahid) in the middle of the road in accordance with the article 7A of constitution. Alleviating these requirements are considered that the supreme court opened the door of impeachment.

Although there is long way to impeachment, the supreme has returned The House of Representative to their job as supervisor, not as presidential aide. Now The House of Representative has the rights to express their opinion for big cases (Century). But, I think the impeachment must be the last choice after all the critics are submitted and ignored.

For several months, there are a lot of news about filling inquiry (hak angket). First right of inquiry was formed so that people know which party should be responsible in taxation during this chaotic. But this filling effort is assessed deviated from the main purpose. Using tax inquiry has hidden agenda that is impeachment attempt against the president. The resignation of several members of Democrat party made a lot of protest from other parties. For responding the protest, the head of People Aspiration Center (Peace) said that the proposing inquiry is a conspiracy with multiple target. They want to  save their life from tax problems and want to ipeach the president if the previous target unsuccessful.

The other hot issue is the Ahmadiah case. We know that ahmadiah case is much discussed nowadays. For several part of society in Indonesia, Ahmadiah is deviated from Islamic teaching, so it must be dismissed by the president. If the president doesn’t dissolve Ahmadiah, several parties (PPP) will propose impeachment because the president breach the constitustion.

Another case is about Setgab (Sekretaris gabungan)/ joint secretary which deemed unsuitable with presidential system. Setgab considered as political illegitimacy, it because Setgab is dominated by two major parties (Golkar and Partai Demokrat). Actually, their main purpose is guide the government for effective government. But in the practice field, setgab can limit the politic parties to give their aspiration. Beside of that, Setgab cannot be separate from Century’s case by made Aburizal bakrie as the head of setgab. According to me, Setgab should be dissolved because it will muddy the atmosphere.

Indonesia actually has not run a full presidential system because of many reason that I told before. If Indonesia want to fix the presidential system, we have do many things. Indonesia must simplify the number of politics parties. But not only jus simplify the number of politics parties but also fix the government. We have to emphasized quantitative selection for limiting the quantity, but we also have to concern about the qualitative requirement for achieving the optimal governance.